Demons

What makes a film quintessential? I’ve tried to organize the factors and often come up short. However, I do know that the films of John Hughes are considered quintessential '80s classics and the majority of films starring Sylvester Stallone are considered the same for the action genre. So what about horror? More specifically, that nugget-filled core called '80s Horror? Well, I’ve seen and mentally processed a vast range of horror -- from J-Horror to Giallo -- and can honestly say that I’ve yet to see a more perfect example of the genre from that period than Demons.

Director Lamberto Bava is the son of Mario Bava, world-famous for his films and cinematography -- most of which are Giallo horror. (In fact, the Bavas are a big family of cinematic greats.) Demons was also produced by the legendary Dario Argento. It’s no surprise, then, that the beginning of the film starts out very much like a Giallo; a fresh-faced young lady, Cheryl (Natasha Hovey), is on the subway and finds herself isolated, with the ominous sensation of being followed. There’s a pursuit (with that splendid synthy Itallo-rock in the background) which ends up providing her with a literal ticket to a righteous nightmare at a local theater.

Stories We Tell

Dir: Sarah Polley, 2012. Documentary.

They say history belongs to the victors, and right or wrong, the person who tells the story gets to make up their own version of history. Actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley’s brilliant (and frankly ingenious) documentary Stories We Tell uses fragments and pieces of memory to tell her own and her parents' story, but without giving away too much, there are many surprises and twists. With the opening narration by her father, actor Michael Polley (of the Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows), you think the film is through his eyes, but eventually you come to realize he may be reading from a text written by Sarah. He tells the story of his relationship with Sarah’s mother Diane, also an actress (who passed away when Sarah was eleven), which fully comes to life, aided by wonderfully edited-in apparent home movies. But as other family members and family friends tell the same stories from different points of view, you also come to realize nothing is as it seems. Everyone has different memories and different points of view, some only coming in fragments. What starts out as a complicated tribute to an artistic family eventually becomes almost a mystery as major family bombs go off. In the end, Stories We Tell becomes one of the most gripping and unique personal documentaries ever made.

Growing up, everyone thought Diane was a “good time Charlie”--an attractive life-of-the-party, a loving free spirit--even though she had two young children from a previous marriage. Michael was a dynamic young British actor on stage, but off, more of an introvert. He was private and she was outwardly showy. Looking back, Michael is convinced Diane fell in love with the characters he played on stage, and was disappointed with who he really was. Nevertheless, the two got married and raised a family. But after some years the marriage grew stale, especially as Diane grew more frustrated with Michael’s lack of career ambition. To both of their relief, Diane was offered a play in Montreal, while Michael stayed back in Toronto with the kids. After a long separation, the two were reunited and were able to rekindle the romance briefly, even having another child together, who turned out to be Sarah. After Diane’s death from cancer, Michael fell into depression, but was forced to raise his little daughter alone. It’s about at this point in the documentary that it starts to come out through different memories that Sarah must have been conceived while Diane was in Montreal and that dear old Michael might not be her biological father. And here Sarah begins to track down all the men who conceivably may have had an affair with her mother while she was away. And then the film takes a big new turn....